


Inside Where Nothing Shows

by woodironbone



Series: Angels & Daemons [1]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Daemons, Gen, Introspection, POV Aziraphale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-08
Updated: 2014-10-08
Packaged: 2018-02-20 09:21:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2423495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woodironbone/pseuds/woodironbone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aziraphale is given a dæmon in preparation for his assignment to Earth. One must blend in, after all. He waits with some excitement and some trepidation for her to settle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inside Where Nothing Shows

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt from a friend.
> 
> The title comes from a line in Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead.
> 
> Orisa (oh-REE-sha) is a Yoruba name which roughly translates to "an angelic manifestation."

Her name is Orisa, and she can be anything in the world.

Aziraphale would be lying if he said he weren't terribly, terribly excited. In fact he can't remember a time when he's ever been this excited before. Part of him wonders if he should even be able to _experience_ excitement, being an angel, but here he is experiencing it, so it must be possible.

And anyway, she is a wondrous gift. He considers himself magnificently fortunate to have received her, to be allowed this strange indulgence: to have a human, or at least provisionally human, soul. Those who are assigned to the mortal plane must _blend_ , after all, and it wouldn't do to let them wander about soulless, drawing all kinds of unwanted attention. So with his assignment, Aziraphale was given Orisa.

Like all the angelic dæmons, she takes a week to settle. It is a streamlined process—angels do not develop as humans do but the dæmons, being more or less real dæmons, cannot settle out of hand. It takes a certain amount of time to determine the nature of one's existence, even in a time crunch.

Aziraphale's week is now up. By tomorrow he'll be stationed in Egypt, and she will be with him, in her newly settled form, the form that will define _him_. Any moment now, he will meet her as she will be forevermore.

Yes. He is excited.

“Don't you have any _idea_?” he asks her. “A guess? You're in more a position than me to know.”

“I don't think that's how it works,” she says rather diplomatically. She is currently in the form of a beautiful falcon, perched proudly on his shoulder. Very human of her, being so proud. Aziraphale likes to think of her as a liaison. A guide to being more human.

“I am not any more human than you,” she points out. He still isn't quite used to how she knows him and his thoughts so very intimately. “I was created for you.”

“Yes, I know.” Aziraphale frowns thoughtfully. “Do you suppose you'll be some sort of bird? You're a bird most often.”

“We like me as a bird,” she says. “But I won't settle based on what we _like_. I settle based on what we _are_.”

“But that's... that's so _human_.” Aziraphale is a little bit perturbed at the thought. “I am not one single thing, I am... many things. And they aren't translatable.”

“Well, nonetheless,” she says, fluffing her feathers before shifting into a little ferret. She curls warmly around the back of his neck; he smiles fondly and reaches up to give her a little stroke. “We've got to blend in, and there's only one way to do that. I assume it'll just be... as close as one can get, without being the real thing. Humanesque.”

“Yes.” Aziraphale mulls it over. “How do you suppose we'll know when it's happened?”

“I think we'll know.” She nuzzles at him. “Don't worry. No matter what, I'll still be yours, part of you.”

A possession—no, an _identity_. Autonomous, his own. The idea is novel, revolutionary; yet she just _said_ it. Orisa is given to not fussing, not concerning herself with the angelic rites and strictures he has always lived by. It's a little scandalous to him, the way she so calmly wends her path through existence, new as she is to it. She does not answer to anyone. There is free will here, he can sense it, and it frightens him almost as much as it excites him.

“Like a clock, you are, always ticking away,” she murmurs, butting her head gently against the back of his neck. “Calm down. Everything's all right, just as it is.”

She remains coiled over his shoulders, longer now, heavier. The softness of her fur changes to something smooth, odd, foreign. He's never felt _this_ before.

“What's that, now?” he asks curiously. “What are you...” He reaches up to touch, and oh, she's _quite_ long now, her little head questing and probing down his arm, bending around to look him in the eye. Intricately patterned, dark brown and vivid gold.

He knows. Just as she said he would, he knows. But he doesn't want to accept it. “Oh go on, then,” he says jocularly. “You've had a laugh. Shift out of that before it sticks.”

“I admit it's ironic.” She flicks her tongue at him.

“Orisa,” he says softly, maybe pleading a little. “Not this. Please change. Not this, you _can't_ be this.”

“Can and am,” she says with a very vocal shrug. “I'm sorry, Aziraphale, you know it's not up to me. It's not so bad, is it? Still one of God's creatures. You'll get used to it.”

“But what will everyone _think_?” he protests, excitement now thoroughly turned to dread and disappointment. “What will they say of me—an angel with a _serpent_ for a soul? It's—it's unseemly!”

Orisa gazes at him, long and slow and calm, her tongue flicking meditatively. Reminds him a little too much of someone. “Aziraphale,” she says thoughtfully, “are you feeling... _pride_?”

“What?” he blurts. No. No, he can't be. It isn't pride, it's, it's... well, it's just not _right_ , an angel and a serpent together, how can he blithely accept such a thing? How could anyone?

“Pride,” she declares, “and... maybe a little envy? Samael's dæmon settled as a great golden eagle, it was rather marvelous, wasn't it?”

“No!” he cries, aghast. The very idea! “No, no. That's—I mean, that's _him_. You're... you're mine. Me.”

He stares at her as she coils around him, draping herself lazily over his arms and shoulders.

“Do you suppose there could have been a mistake?” he ventures. “Or the possibility of a, a reset?”

“You'll get used to it,” she says again, firmly. “You shall have to.”

He sighs. He knows she's right—she usually is. Tentatively, embarrassed (yet another perplexing new sensation), he reaches up to touch her, running his fingers delicately along her scaly skin.

“Sort of nice, isn't it?” she remarks.

“I suppose so,” he murmurs. She loops gently around his wrist and nuzzles at him, just as she had while being a mammal, or a bird. “It shall take some time, to get used to this.”

“So, I expect, shall many things,” she says.

He has no idea what she's referring to, or how she can sound so knowledgeable about it. He suspects it might be part of being a dæmon. He is most definitely frightened now, an angel with a snake soul, about to plunge himself into the world of humanity and all its great mysteries, but Orisa hisses softly at him and wraps herself around him like a blanket, if that blanket could understand him on a curiously intrinsic level. You'll be all right, she reassures without speaking, and with a new and rather alarming kind of faith, he believes her.


End file.
